We have all been there. In a meeting, searching for ideas to create new business or solve an old problem, out comes the obligatory flip chart and a set of markers. Then the tired mantra "all ideas are good ideas" is recited before all present attempt to come up with some ground-breaking creative thinking. But do these traditional techniques actually work?

Ray Elmitt, founder of Crystal Interactive, which regularly runs brainstorming sessions for companies using wirelessly networked laptop computers, believes that traditional ways of generating ideas are largely unproductive.

"Ideas are batted up on to flip charts, and groups find it difficult to separate the generation of ideas from the evaluation stage. It slows down really fast as people start to criticise the ideas," he says.

Elmitt estimates that in a traditional session with a group of about six people you are only going to get about 15-20 ideas. With the same group using wireless-enabled brainstorming technology, he often gets three times that number in about five minutes.

That probably explains why a range of companies from the BBC and ITV to major airlines are organising sessions on anything from strategy to product development using these new technology-based techniques.

In a typical Crystal Interactive brainstorming session, all participants are given their own laptop which lets them input their ideas anonymously. Meanwhile, on their screen they can see all the other contributions that are being simultaneously submitted by other members in the session.

"Everyone has a PC so everybody can effectively speak at once instead of waiting their turn. You just key your ideas in. It's much faster because they are anonymous and people are not afraid to put forward ideas," explains Elmitt.

He feels that in a traditional business environment ideas can be shot down, not on grounds of quality but simply because of the position of the person who suggested them.

The company works in advance with all of its clients to agree the subjects that are to be addressed by a team and then acts as a facilitator to assist the real-time collaborative process.

"We help the groups to generate loads of ideas, evaluate them and organise them into themes so they understand them. Then we hone in on a few vital areas," Elmitt explains.

He admits that the generation of a large volume of ideas is not in itself a guarantee of quality, but he points out that it does give more options to work with. Working anonymously, participants are invited to group results under headings and then they can vote in real time on issues of importance and the priority actions to be taken.

Dot.coms were famous for introducing flatter organisations to promote the faster sharing of information, and the Crystal Interactive approach carries forward this culture.

The tailored software which facilitates this new brainstorming process is a product called groupSystems and it was produced by Ventana Corporation, which is a commercial offshoot of the University of Arizona.

But what do the participants feel about this new way of exchanging ideas? Andrew Oldham, e-commerce standards manager for Intel, recently used the wireless laptops as part of an e-business workshop on investment issues and he felt the technology helped people overcome their normal inhibitions.

"You get good ideas which traditionally you might not get because people might be unwilling to express them," he says.

Based in Kingston-upon-Thames, Crystal Interactive (www.crystal-interactive.co. uk) works with a permanent core staff of just three, but with extra help available on contract. A lot of the company's methods are used by organisations overseas and while the group decision-making technology is potentially available to anyone, it tends to be high-tech organisations and the financial services industry which use it the most at the moment.

Adrian Abbott, b2b finance manager for Sainsbury's, has been on a Crystal Interactive workshop and he came away impressed with the efficiency of the process. "The technology enables you to gather ideas from a wide variety of people very rapidly," he says.

But for small groups, he thinks face-to-face discussions are more effective and he feels the technology-based process does not allow enough scope for people to challenge and react to the instantly generated findings.

But Peter Lewy, director of learning and development for Exel plc, a global supply chain management company, believes it is important for employees to feel their opinions are valued, and he likes the immediacy of technology-enabled brainstorming.

Exel has used Crystal Interactive in order to make its conferences more interactive. Rather than leaving staff to pay lip service to someone addressing them from a stage, he explains they wanted to get employees more involved with the development of the organisation. "Too much communication is top down. This gives instant opportunities for sideways and upwards feedback."

Copies of the output of the sessions are printed off quickly, but Lewy accepts that the use of the technology will not necessarily mean much unless the feedback is acted upon. He also believes it will be a while before traditional managers make non-hierarchical group decision-making part of their day-to-day practices.